


Where You Go, I'll Follow

by chancellorclarke



Series: Where You Go, I'll Follow [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4196955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancellorclarke/pseuds/chancellorclarke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all of Root’s lifetimes, she’s found that there are only two things that have always held constant: </p><p>1)	Root always remembers.  <br/>2)	Shaw always forgets.  </p><p>Reincarnation AU. Set after 4x11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You Go, I'll Follow

**Author's Note:**

> A repost for archival purposes. My old fics will be up one by one—I’m rewriting them until I’m happy with how they come out, so it might take a while. 
> 
> This one wasn’t edited that much, just grammar here and there. So if you’ve read this before, you’re probably reading more or less the same content.

_And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”_

_(The Chaos of Stars – Kiersten White)_

 

 

*

 

 

In all of Root’s lifetimes, she’s found that there are only two things that have always held constant:

1)   Root always remembers.  

2)   Shaw always forgets.  

 

 

*

 

 

In her first life, they meet when they’re 29. Fixated on tracking The Machine, Root hacks into the ISA database, whittling it down to the list of agents who would know of The Machine's location. In the end, one name remains: Sameen Shaw.

She poses as Veronica and tasers her, threatening to torture her with an iron in order to obtain that information, to expose the secret that Shaw keeps hidden.

 

 

*

 

 

(Perhaps the one thing that Root will always regret 

is not being able to meet Shaw in her first life as herself.

Maybe then, she wouldn’t have to wonder how it'd feel 

to not live a life loving someone so much, 

and for them, not at all.)

 

 

*

 

Most of the time, Root spends her lives wandering. To Rome's coffee shops, England's dog pounds, New York's shooting ranges—places that she'd think Shaw would frequent, hoping that maybe she'll catch glimpses of her. Root always finds dark hair, lithe frames, brown eyes, and cocky smirks, but none of them are quite like hers. None of them make her heart flutter or her chest expand, and none of them make her feel like she can breathe again. Instead, they remind her of the hollow space in her chest, and the constant feeling of missing something she can never quite have.

She wanders.

 

 

*

 

 

One time:

Root jumps out of a four-story building, narrowly escaping a gunshot to the head. She lands on the roof of a car, face down, her left arm breaking her fall. She groans, her head throbbing in pain, and her entire body, sore. She knows before she even tries to stand up that she's broken a few of her bones. She hears noise—too much noise. Cars honking. People yelling, screaming. Sirens. And before she can really process it, she's being carried by two men onto a stretcher. Despite her protests, they rush her to the paramedic van, to the nearest hospital. She wants to remove the IV they’ve stuck in her arm, to push them away and jump out of the van, but against her will, she finds herself closing her eyes instead.

By the time Root opens them again, she's in a room too bright and too pale, wearing a hospital gown a size too big and a cast on her left arm that limits too much of her movement. She wants to close her eyes again.

"Samantha Groves," a stern voice calls, as the hospital screen pulls away. Root looks up. 

It's Shaw.

"I've assessed the damages on your body from the fall. It seems that you’ve broken your left arm and four of your ribs," Shaw informs her, her eyes on the clipboard she's holding. "However, there are other wounds on your body that have never properly healed.” Shaw looks up. “Would you like those looked at as well?"

Root gives her a grateful smile, but shakes her head. "Thank you, but no." 

Shaw quirks her eyebrow. “You’ve got some sort of death wish?”

Root smiles at her again, but this time, it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

“Something like that.”

 

 

*

 

 

“I love you,” Shaw breathes as she thrusts inside Root, whispering the words on her skin like a promise she intends to keep.

Root nods, biting her lip to stop the same words from falling out of her mouth. If she doesn’t say them aloud, maybe the ache that weighs so heavy on her chest will stop growing, maybe the hollow feeling that siphons air from her lungs will be filled, and maybe, what they have in that moment will last more than just one lifetime.

 

 

*

 

 

 (The worst part of it all is that Shaw never remembers.)

 

 

*

 

 

“I love you, Sameen,” Root slurs, her eyes staring lazily at Shaw.

Shaw chuckles as she walks towards Root. “All of my patients tell me that,” Shaw says to her, checking Root’s vitals. “And it’s Dr. Shaw to you.”

“But you believe me, right, Sam?” Root pushes, her voice more urgent. “That I mean it?”

Shaw gives her a strange look. “Your mind’s delirious from the morphine, Ms. Groves,” Shaw says matter-of-factly, jotting down notes on her clipboard. “It should wear off in a few hours.”

Root shakes her head, her shoulders, deflated.

“It never does.”

 

 

*

 

 

(Or maybe, that Root remembers it all.)

 

 

*

 

 

It only lasts a second, two at most. Two seconds of reveling in the feel of Shaw’s lips on hers, the hot breath against her skin, the roughness of Shaw’s hands. And then the pressure on her lips is gone, replaced by a shove on her shoulders, back towards the elevator. Root sees Shaw pull down the metal screen, locking the latch, and all she can do is stare, frozen in place. Her body knows before her mind does of what Shaw’s about to do.

Shaw runs towards the override button, leaving Root behind.

 

 

*

 

 

(No matter how loudly Root screamed,

she couldn't quell the rampant fire that

singed her insides with first degree burns,

and engulfed her with unrelenting pain

from the inside, out.)

 

 

*

 

“How many lives has it been?”

It’s late, dark. Even under the light of the moon, Root can barely make out Shaw’s features. But while the New York summer night stifles the air of the streets in the city, in the confines of their apartment, with Root’s head on Shaw’s chest and their legs intertwined, Root breathes easily.

“Seventy five,” Root whispers, the words hitting softly on Shaw’s skin like a secret she’s never dared to say aloud.

Shaw hums, runs her hands through Root’s hair. For a long moment, they stay like that, and despite the noise of the busy streets outside their window, all Root hears is the slow, steady beat of Shaw's heart and the even breaths that Shaw takes.

“How many do you see me in?” 

Root's hands tighten reflexively on Shaw's waist. Not enough, Root thinks. Never enough.

Eventually, Root answers.

“Twenty two."

Root feels Shaw stiffen beneath her, and she frowns. She pushes herself up off her elbows to look at Shaw's face, to figure out why Shaw suddenly tensed. She'd expected anger, or annoyance, or pain, but instead, all Root sees in Shaw's brown eyes is sadness, dark and heavy. She feels Shaw's hands on her face, cradling her cheeks gently, reverently, as though she's afraid that if she doesn't, Root will break.

“Do I ever love you in them?” Shaw asks, her eyes full of apprehension, of what Root's answer will be.

Root tries to smile. If Root can help it, she tries not to remember those lives—the lives in which she finds Shaw only to watch her from afar, because of ill-fated timing, of lovers had, of circumstance. Those lives were lives that didn't end quickly enough.

“Sometimes.”

At that, Shaw kisses her, not out of pity or of sympathy. Shaw kisses her, soft and insistent like an honest apology, but for what, Root's not sure. She doesn't ask, doesn't want to remember anymore, intent on being here with Shaw and savoring it for as long as she can.

Eventually, Shaw breaks their kiss to come up for air. Breathing heavily, she looks at Root straight in the eye, and asks her one more question:

“Do you ever love me in them?”

Root nods fervently. She leans down and kisses Shaw with all she has, like she doesn’t ever want to let Shaw go. Root feels her lips kiss back, feels moisture on her cheeks, and her body relaxing beneath her.

"Always," Root mumbles into the kiss, tastes salt on her lips. "Always."

 

 

*

 

 

In all of Root’s lifetimes, she’s found that there are only three things that have always held constant:

1) Root always remembers. 

2) Shaw always forgets. 

3) Root will always find her way back to her.

 

 

 

 


End file.
